Summary
- Agile Analog and Xiphera are collaborating to combine analog anti-tamper sensor IP with digital cryptographic IP cores.
- The partnership links post-quantum cryptography with physical protection against glitching, fault injection, and tampering.
- Semiconductor security increasingly depends on digital algorithms, hardware roots of trust, physical attack resistance, and long product lifecycles.
Agile Analog is collaborating with Xiphera to combine analog anti-tamper sensor IP with digital cryptographic IP cores, as semiconductor designers prepare for post-quantum security requirements that extend beyond algorithms.
The Cambridge-based analog IP specialist says the collaboration brings together its agileSecure anti-tamper sensor IP and Xiphera’s hardware-based cryptographic IP. The aim is to give system-on-chip designers a security subsystem that protects both digital cryptographic operations and the physical silicon environment in which those operations run.
Xiphera’s xQlave post-quantum cryptography family includes hardware implementations of quantum-secure key exchange and digital signatures based on NIST-standardised algorithms. Agile Analog’s agileSecure portfolio includes tamper detection tools such as clock attack monitoring, electromagnetic fault injection detection, temperature sensing, and voltage glitch detection.
The collaboration is commercially specific, but the technical model is broader. Post-quantum cryptography is often discussed at the protocol and software layer, while chips used in automotive systems, industrial equipment, telecoms hardware, secure elements, payment infrastructure, defence platforms, datacentres, and connected devices also need protection against physical manipulation. An algorithm may be mathematically sound while the device running it remains vulnerable to fault injection, side-channel analysis, voltage glitching, clock manipulation, or invasive tampering.
That distinction becomes more important as quantum-safe migration moves into long-life hardware. A connected product designed today may remain in service into the 2030s or 2040s. If it handles identity, secure boot, firmware updates, encrypted communications, or safety-related control functions, its cryptographic design needs to account for future quantum risk. Its physical design also needs to resist attacks against the silicon rather than the mathematics.
Chris Morrison, vice president of product marketing at Agile Analog, said in the supplied announcement that the industry can no longer afford to treat digital cryptography and physical security as separate silos. “By pairing their cryptographic modules with our configurable process-portable analog security IP, we are giving customers a comprehensive defense solution, and meeting the growing security and system-level protection requirements in modern semiconductor designs,” he said.
Tommi Lampila, chief revenue officer at Xiphera, said customers want trusted technology partners that can provide solutions for multiple layers of security architecture. “By combining our expertise, we are able to help our customers build comprehensive cryptographic and fault protection solutions for their semiconductor designs,” he said.
The security case is strongest where semiconductor designs become roots of trust. Secure boot, encrypted storage, device identity, firmware verification, key management, and hardware-backed authentication depend on the chip resisting both remote and local attack paths. In industrial and critical infrastructure settings, physical access may be difficult, but devices can be stolen, serviced, resold, exposed in the field, or attacked through maintenance channels.
UK and European procurement pressure is also increasing. ANSSI’s post-quantum certification direction in France, EU product security regulation, and secure-by-design expectations are all pushing suppliers to provide evidence over the full product lifecycle. Semiconductor IP choices made during design will affect what can be certified, updated, and trusted years later.
The Agile Analog and Xiphera collaboration points to the shape of that work. Quantum-safe systems will not be secured only by replacing cryptographic algorithms. They will need cryptographic agility, hardware implementation assurance, tamper detection, supply chain confidence, and evidence that security controls survive physical deployment.
